Developing The Perfect Employee

The Wall Street Journal’s Lauren Weber explores the connection between higher education and workforce development in this December 5 article. She investigates the strategy of opening a corporate university to provide employee training, focusing on Westinghouse Electric Co’s online institution.

Donna Weiss, the managing director of the Corporate Executive Board told Weber that despite the higher expense incurred by opening an independent training institution, the results make it worth while.

She pointed out corporate universities provide “much more customized and tailored to your organizational needs, regardless of whether it’s a very technical training or even about business negotiation.” In this way, corporations are spending development money to create a so-called ‘perfect employee’, with exactly the skills they require and none of the filler.